On land at last

Wow, the cruise is over, no more butler service, fawning attendants, hot tub, chocolates on the pillow, constant updates from Dottie the cruise director, and exclusive news coverage by FoxNews. Well, not to quibble, it was pretty fabulous but enough already.

I can't tell you how bizarre it felt to be watching the inauguration (I had to get up at 4:30 am NZ time) on board the ship in the big theatre/lounge on three large screens with the handful of other democrats on the boat. When I tell you that there were 48 members of the Texas Aggies Association and a Wine Tasting Club on board you will understand that I didn't expect to find a lot of other Obama-ites sharing the excitement. We were a small band but we were excited and watched and cried and cheered and sang along with our compatriots at home. In the ultimate irony (and source of irritation to us all) the only channel that the ship had was Fox so you can imagine how much we all loved the commentary. Several people actually tried to throw shoes at the screen on a couple of occasions but were restrained by the stewards in attendance.

As I left the lounge to go back to the stateroom I stopped to thank the steward who had been providing coffee and tea and pastries for us since 5 am., he was a lovely man from Portugal (I think) and I said this was such a great day for us to which he responded "It is a great day for us all." I was very touched by that. Everywhere I went later in the day - we were in Tauranga, a lovely beach-side town - people asked me if I had been watching. Apparently there were a lot of New Zealanders up at 5 am too - I've saved the front page of the "Bay of Plenty Times" with Obama on the front page.

We docked in Auckland sometime in the night and had to be out of our staterooms at 8am this morning. Once we disembarked we were shepherded on to a coach with our luggage (now sadly expanded) and taken on a time-killing tour around the city. This is the cruise-line's idea of how to do the "free" boat to hotel transfer. They pack you on a bus and drive you around for as long as they can and then deliver you to the hotel where of course our room still wasn't ready. By this time everybody is tired and cranky. Well, let me speak for myself. I was pretty tired and cranky. At least we got to have some wonderful views of the city, we saw a volcano (there are reported to be 48 in New Zealand, none currently active I think). Once again the hotel selected for us by the cruise-line is located on severely inclined streets - but it is quite nicely appointed and best of all (after 3 weeks) it has a washing machine and an outfitted kitchen!!!!

Catherine is off to the casino and I'm catching up now that I have a reasonable connection. I haven't uploaded all our pictures from the last two days but I'll try to put some up soon. I will gradually recount some of what we done and seen since I last wrote but I think I'll sign off for now. More soon.